Last year, I proposed a Winter Palette, and then I changed my mind about many of the colors after doing Lisa Spangler’s Nature Spot challenge. After a second round of Nature Spot challenge the following year, I have built a second iteration of the Winter Palette!
Billy Idyll
Mixing Mauve for Watercolor Clouds
Last time I looked at purple mixes, I fell most in love with the vibrant ones. Recently, though, in my efforts to make more subtle watercolor sky & sunset colors, I’ve been trying to find my favorite mixes for mauve, aka dull purple.
Artist Palette Profiles: Ron Ranson
I loved Ron Ranson On Skies (1996, Studio Vista), a book that mixes careful observation and teaching about cloud and sky natural history with practical painting techniques. Let’s see what colors Ranson used to paint skies!
The Paint Scoring List!
When deciding between paints, especially ones that I like equally well and that fill similar palette niches, I find it hard to juggle all the various factors to think about, many of which are not immediately obvious from first paintout: lightfastness, toxicity, drying shift, price series (cost), and tinting strength. That’s why I’ve come up with a needlessly complicated rating system!
What’s in my recycle bin?
I post most of my paintings here on the blog and my instagram. I regard very few as “not good enough.” I wouldn’t have nearly a painting a day if I exerted rigorous quality control. Posting nearly everything helps me to be less precious and critical of my own work.
However, there are some paintings that I decide to bin without posting (and sometimes without finishing), for various reasons. Today, paradoxically, I’ll post some of the paintings I decided not to post. Let’s take a trip through my December recycle bin.
Technique Notes: Underpainting
Recently I’ve been trying a new thing where I start paintings with an underpainting in light washes of my favorite bright colors, then build “realistic” colors on top of that. This is a way to get a sort of lovely pastel glow through the painting.
Photo to Painting: December Late Foliage & Winter Sunsets
With my US National Parks project done, in December, I found myself turning to my photo archive more and more for inspiration. Here’s the photo references for my recent paintings.
Two-Year Blog Retrospective
I was so excited to do my personal art retrospective for 2023 that I didn’t think to look back on the blog itself! I started in December 2021, so the blog is pretty much exactly 2 years old.
Monthly Retrospective: December 2023
I’ll do an annual retrospective in another post, but here’s my look at just the month of December. Having finished my National Parks project in November, I took the month of December officially off challenges to do whatever. That said, I still ended up doing some challenges, as a treat – including finishing Magrish’s 3-week … Read more
2023 Annual Retrospective
I started painting in 2021, painted a lot more in 2022, and painted still more in 2023! This year, I’m especially grateful for the art friendships I’ve made – thanks to everyone who hangs out in my Discord! (Comment or DM me – @billyidyll on Instagram – if you want to be included!)